


mono no aware

by pudgypanda



Series: satoru [6]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Angst, Bargaining, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Itachi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Systemic Injustices, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 16:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudgypanda/pseuds/pudgypanda
Summary: mono no aware: the pathos of things; a bittersweet acknowledgment of the transience of all things and the balance between life and death__How can Sasuke make sense of his strength when it came at a cost he never would have agreed to pay? There might not be an answer to this question, but Sakura reminds him that there is always an answer to how they can heal the rawness that it leaves in their hearts.





	mono no aware

Sasuke bolts upright, drowning in the voice of a loving older brother as it bleeds into the malevolent urgings emanating from a swirled mask. He sees the hand reaching for his eyes over and over again, fingers outstretched, hears the blood sizzling as it drips through the chakra cloud of an orange Susano’o from the smiling mouth before him. Sasuke throws up his hands, scrabbling for something, anything.

For a moment, he is not sure what is fighting back at him, until he realizes his eyelids are still pressed tightly shut. He opens them to find Sakura, summoning all her legendary strength to pry his frantic and flailing hands away from his face even as his fingers reach to gouge out his own eyes.

Not his eyes. Itachi’s eyes.

He is crying now, or maybe he has been this whole time. His face is hot and smeared with wet, contorted into something hideous as the tears stream from him. His voice drops to little louder than a bitter whisper.

“I would give it all back.”

Even as his body screams, his gaze is quiet, steady, destroyed. He closes his eyes, feeling hers still boring a hole into him from just a breath away, and realizes he has no idea when he activated his Eternal Mangekyō as he forces it down.

He thinks of an older brother, the slender back which bore him to and from the Uchiha training ground.

“All of it,” he rasps hoarsely, chest heaving.

The night whirs around him as he reels - he can barely recall the touch of a mother who tended the tomato garden as lovingly as she looked after her sons. He remembers - or is it imagining? - the gruff voice of a father, hard to impress, who hid his affections behind an iron resolve, but who tucked them in each night nonetheless.

Slim, calloused fingers move up his arms from where they had been locked around his wrists. He trembles as the mountain wind gusts through the narrow pass where they have sheltered overnight, where at least the infamous “rock rain” of Iwa’s nation cannot reach. But where her skin meets his, the cramping releases, muscles finally relaxing. He is not sure if this is thanks to the coolness of her chakra, glowing faintly green at her palms, or because of something more. Her hands reach his shoulders and wrap firmly, tenderly, across his sweat-drenched back, and at this, all the tension leaves Sasuke’s body at once.

He falls forward into her without reservation, and Sakura holds him close to her as he sobs out a rage aimed at a world that brought such horrors before a little boy’s eyes, at a system that let him fester alone for years, but most of all, at himself and his own decades-long misplaced hatred. Gone is any trace of the ever-composed Uchiha Sasuke, but Sakura kisses him nonetheless, lips breathing affection against his feverish skin - his cheek, the side of his neck, his fingertips, his eyelids. She is everywhere at once, her devotion enveloping him from all sides even as he curses himself at his most useless, stripped of any shred of dignity.

He is not sure how long he clings to her, lost to the grief and the trauma, or how he winds up with his head cushioned on her lap as she cards her fingers through his wet hair. He can feel an oncoming headache futilely doing battle with the steady stream of chakra emanating from Sakura’s fingertips as they run over his scalp. He looks up at her blearily through swollen eyes, the gentleness in her face as she bends down to kiss the tip of his sniffling nose in spite of her own quiet tears, and Sasuke cannot hold in the grateful, tired smile tugging on his lips. He turns and buries his messy face in the soft skin of her bare belly.

After what seems like both an eternity and also mere minutes, Sakura lifts his torso off her lap and clear off the ground with one hand - really, Sasuke should not be surprised anymore because he is fairly certain she can pick up half the Akimichi clan at once - to smooth out the crumpled bedroll beneath them. She lays him back down and then fits herself against him in an increasingly familiar conformation, one leg hitched over his thigh. Instinctively, he lifts his remaining arm, reflexively anticipating the lift of her head so she can resettle it on his bicep. 

He is not sure when his body began moving to accommodate hers of its own accord.

Finally, the green hum of chakra at her fingertips tapers off, although her fingers continue drumming on his chest. “Sasuke-kun,” she says softly.

“Mm?” he croaks hoarsely.  
  
“Look at me?”

He opens his eyes, which had drifted shut with the comforting press of her body against his. She is gazing up at him, hand coming to his cheek.

“We can’t go back,” she whispers quietly, “not at any price - probably not even one Shinigami-sama himself could pay.”

He swallows.

She looks up at the moonless night sky. “There are so many things I wish I could trade away too,” she says bitterly, her palm cool against his heated face. “But there’s nobody to bargain with, nobody sitting at the scales to calculate this transaction. And so these-“ her fingertips brush the corners of his eyes, _Itachi’s eyes_ \- “are not something that you can return, for better or worse.”

She smiles up at him, wistful. “Don’t you think he would have been happy to know where are you are now?” She kisses each eyelid, chaste and light. “Itachi-nii’s eyes were not something paid for, love. They were a gift.”

“Aa,” he concedes. He really is trying to get better with his words, but even when he fails to fid them, somehow Sakura always seems to see right to the heart of him, drawing out that which he cannot seem to express himself.

Sasuke blows out a long sigh. “He deserved better.”

“The world was not fair to him,” Sakura agrees. “And it wasn’t fair to us, either. But we’re here, aren’t we?” she murmurs against his shoulder.

Sasuke nods in response, and pulls her tighter to him. He thinks, not for the first time, that there is no world in which he deserves her at all, much less this imperfect one and this imperfect him.

“Thank you,” he breathes, kissing the top of her head in spite of his still tear-stained face. She is already asleep, but he can still make out her mumbling, “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all - I am tremendously sorry that this next snippet took months and months to get to you guys. In truth, I have most of this series written, but there are some gaps here and there that just need to be colored in, so to speak.
> 
> The problem is that I have frankly had the most tumultuous year of my young adult life (2018-2019 usurped 2016 in that title, and my 2016 was traumatic as hell), with some diagnoses of my own and also illnesses and deaths in my family, with whom I'm very close, as well as suddenly unexpected passings of old friends. I'm also still a full-time veterinary student, which has been one of the main sources of stability and strength in my life, which is wonderful. But through 3 unexpected housing crises/changes in 10 months and international trips both anticipated and sudden (read: family funerals), my mental health has been a real shit show.
> 
> I have a small trickle of kudos that come in on these works every day, and it truly makes my day. And writing through Sakura and Sasuke's process of healing is incredibly therapeutic. But I'm barely managing the time and energy to look after myself and my pets these days, much less doing things that are therapeutic for me.
> 
> Thanks for bearing with this long ramble, reader! The tl;dr is that this series will still most definitely get updated, but it will require some patience. I have at least 4 more one-shots in various states of drafting, but I can sadly make no promises on when they'll see the light of day.
> 
> Love,  
pudge


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